Daley `Toasts' Future Of Clean-fuel Bus

September 12, 1995|By Gary Washburn, Tribune Transportation Writer.

Richard Daley, mayor of the third largest city in America, was handed a glass that moments before had been sitting on LaSalle Street collecting a clear liquid that dripped slowly from the tailpipe of a bus.

He drew it to his lips. He took a sip.

"It's not bad," announced the mayor as cameras recorded the moment and spectators chuckled.

The clear liquid in this demonstration was water, and it was the only emission from a new type of clean-fuel bus that Chicago Transit Authority officials contend could revolutionize public transit fleets nationwide, including their own.

"Today we are toasting a new technology," said CTA President Robert Belcaster, who addressed an environmental conference at City Hall before taking a ride with Daley on the new vehicle. "I think it will be a technology for the next 100 years."

The bus is powered by a "fuel cell" that combines hydrogen and the oxygen in ambient air to produce a flow of electricity strong and dependable enough to propel a 40-foot coach through city streets on its daily route, officials said. The bus is capable of traveling at speeds equal to those of a traditional bus powered by a diesel-fueled internal combustion engine and with better acceleration, according to officials of Ballard Power Systems, the Canadian company that manufactures the cell.

The CTA is purchasing three new fuel-cell powered buses under an experimental $5.8 million program.

The vehicles, to be delivered in mid-1996, will operate on regular routes throughout the city as CTA officials and Ballard executives monitor their performance through the hottest spells of summer and the most frigid cold snaps of winter.

If the test, which will last up to three years, proves successful, officials say that the CTA could switch entirely to fuel-cell technology as it gradually replaces its 2,000-bus fleet.

But that assumes prices can be made competitive.

The bus on display Monday, with its handmade fuel cell, costs about $1 million. That compares to about $250,000 for a traditional bus.

But Firoz Rasul, Ballard's president, said the price ultimately could be reduced to about $300,000 with the mass production of cells.

The projected cost of hydrogen gas on the three experimental buses headed for the CTA comes out to roughly $1 a mile, Rasul said. However, with a more sophisticated fueling system that would be installed if a large portion of the fleet is fuel-cell powered, it could be brought down to the cost of diesel fuel, or about 40 cents a mile, he said.

Because the fuel cell has no moving parts and the bus has no transmission, maintenance costs on the experimental vehicles are expected to be much lower than with traditional vehicles, company officials said.

Fuel-cell technology has existed since 1839 and was first used in practical applications in the Gemini and Apollo space programs of the 1960s, according to Ballard.

But the company has made technical improvements-such as producing a design that provides much greater power at lower cost than its predecessors-that has opened the door to widespread commercial applications, Rasul said.

The CTA experiment will be the first test of the Ballard cell under day-to-day operating conditions.